India, May 31 -- War is a time that brings back many myths, sparking earnest and sometimes intense debates by people of Pakistan on the myth and reality of this small but volatile community of Hussaini Brahmins. Some challenge the very term 'Hussaini Brahmin,' asking how Brahmins can ever be Hussaini. And this is not without reason because traditionally Brahmins are a rigid high-caste Hindus who consider themselves the purest of the pure and shun even the shadows of other creeds. Well, truth can be stranger than fiction and myths are always stronger than reality. As a little girl at my elder brother's wedding I recall my mother making a huge dish of halwa and calling it "Khwaja di karhai". Who is Khwaja, I asked her. "He is the lord and master," she told me. More confusion, for I thought the blue idol of god in her room, holding a flute to his lips, was the Lord. Anyway, the halva was so yummy that I felt the more lords, the better. Many years later as a senior schoolgirl, I read a long article by none other than Khushwant Singh who wrote the full story of this lot with special reference to my second name: "Wah! Dut Sultan, Hindu ka dharam, Musalman ka iman, Wah Dutt Sultan, adha Hindu adha Musalman." It felt better to be part of two religions as I had Muslim friends for I had made many trips with my mother to Rawalpindi to meet her sister and family who had not migrated to this side in 1947. Interestingly, I travelled five times to Rawalpindi from Chandigarh with my mother but she never stopped at Lahore. The partiality to Rawalpindi was that she grew up there and moved to Lahore only after her marriage. Many years later, I visited Lahore on a literary trip organised by The World Punjabi Conference where I learned more about the Hussaini Brahmins, also called Mohyal Brahmins, made up of seven castes called Bali, Bhumyal, Chibber, Dutt, Lau, Mohan and Vaid. They traced their descent to Dronacharya of the Eklavya thumb infamy. But in history they redeemed themselves by denouncing Brahmanical practices and becoming warriors and agriculturalists. In 681 AD, Rahab Sidh Dutt fought for the sons of Prophet Mohammad in Karbala and sacrificed seven of his sons in battle on the 10th day of the Moharram. Overwhelmed by grief, Rahab and his kith and kin returned to their roots in Punjab and settled down in Lahore. The Muslims remained grateful to them for their sacrifices in Karbala and they were never forced to change their religion. During the trip, one of the hosts brought me an article by Majid Sheikh on Dutts of Mochi Gate (Dawn January 6, 2004) which mentioned that they lived in large numbers in Lahore and fled the city only at the time of Partition. The writer also mentions that Sunil Dutt gifted $1,00,000 to Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in memory of his wife, the celebrated actress Nargis (interestingly her father too was a Mohyal Brahmin from Rawalpindi). Sheikh recorded with joy the statement of Sunil Dutt that accompanied the donation. "For Lahore, a Dutt will even give his life." The Dutts had put up a brave resistance to Mahmood of Ghazni in Lahore. Sheikh says in his article that the Dutts along with Manjs and Virks were among the original Lahoris. Dutts may have done something for Lahore but it is Lahore that gave me the identity of being an original Lahoran. One of the most popular commentators on the ongoing US-Iran conflict is yet another Hussaini Brahmin, retired Major General GD (Gagandeep) Bakshi. He belongs, of course, to the Chibber community and lost his elder brother, Raman Bakshi, in the 1965 war. What makes him so sought after by vernacular folks, like this ageing scribbler, is his use of Punjabi and Hindi phrases like "sarv satyanash" (complete ruin), "dur fite moonh' (get lost with your unwanted face), "talve chato" (lick feet) or his habit of quoting a popular Hindi song line to describe Donald Trump: "Ik chatur naar badi hoshiar' (a clever, sharp woman). In one of his interviews, he is asked if he belongs to the clan of Hussaini Brahmins. He smiles, nods, and apologises for his hot temper while speaking of the Karbala War and its great losses. At this, my elder brother, in his eighties, once in the army and now leading a retired life in Secunderabad, gets angry and shouts on the phone, "The credit for fighting the Karbala War goes to the Dutts and not the Chibbers!" (This is because the retired Major General belongs to the Chibber caste while Bakshi or Mehta were titles given in Mughal times). With this, one ends with a prayer of peace and an end to all wars. One says so at risk of being labelled a cowardly-weak hearted Dutt! My mother would often mock the Mohyal males saying that the joke in Lahore was the Mohyals were so volatile that when they held their monthly meeting, they ran short of bamboo sticks!...